Not an official entry but still an interesting concept

Not an official entry but still an interesting concept Posted on: Tue Apr 27, 2004 4:36 pm

"Check out my "Concepts page" there is a model of a converted
Grumman Tomcat. It has been gutted of weapons and a huge external tank added for NOS fuel and a tar based hybrid rocket mounted over the fuselage. A Tomcat can hit in excess of 80,000 feet in a zoom climb and actually fly at 2.8 Mach. Even though the military says 2.0 Mach and 73,000 feet. I know a guy who worked on them for years. It would zoom up and at peak altitude light the hybrid which would make 40,000 lbs. of thrust for one minute and take the speed up to Mach 5 or about at burn out at 240,000 feet then it would coast to 300,000 feet before leveling out using a simple RCS system with pressure vessels mounted in the nose where the old weapons attack rader used to be. 60 percent of the fuel tanks would be filled with non combustable injectable foam in order to strengthen those areas as the total fuel load would not be needed. The "Home sick Amgel" aerospacecraft would pitch nose down and go into a steep dive as a stabilizing drogue is deployed
from the original braking chute can. It will hang from this chute
from180,000 feet to 60,000 where it would release the chute just like it
would upon landing.The engines would be restarted and wings spread into a
controlled landing. There are thousands of TomCat pilots out there that
would stand in line to go to space.The Tomcat would be protected during
re-entry although that would be an overstatement by a silicone based
ablative coating. Similar to the type used on the X-15. The TomCat would
cool faster because it is aluminum as opposed to inconel X. Certain leading
edges for the TomCat would be rebuilt in stainless steel or Titanium for
heat protection but other than adding the RCS and booster and securing the
seals all should work well. You could strip a TomCat down to under 30,000
lbs. and add another 5,000 lbs. for the rocket system and walla, Spacship!
The heating would only last a few minutes over-all and not last for hours
like a Habu. I picked the TomCat because it is the sturdiest fighter ever
built and is faster and has a greater ceiling than the Eagle or Super Hornet
and a big plane would be needed to carry the hybrid. The TomCats will be
going on the auction blocks as the new Fighter/bombers we are testing come on line in a couple of years. They will go for 2-3 million dollars without
the weapons systems. About $800,000.00 in conversions amd you to can jet
your buddy into space (it is a two seater) just for yucks. It always amazes
me why all these X-prize clowns want to re-develop technology that was built
and flown 50 years ago. Seems like other than Rutan who has Paul Allen
behind him, Paul has more money than most small countries. All these
companies do is fire piss ass demonstrator wimp motors that couldn't out a
pea into space,let alone three men. Maybe they want a permanent
job?.......Waldo"

The idea has some merit, even if "WALDO" sounds sounds blatently stupid in the end when he resorts to belittling the X-prize teams. Yes some of them ARE using 50 year old technology.

Of course, HE is proposing 40 year old technology. I wonder of Waldo knows anything about the NF104.

Problems:
Tomcat is carrying an empty stage up most of the way (the turbines). SpaceShipOne makes sense more since because it drops stage one (White Knight), just as X1 and X15 did. Tomcat's are heavy anyway, and have a swingwing, which is unnecessary for the flightpath.

What might make more sense would be to use an old 727 (or whatever could be obtained cheaply), to tow an F104b to launch altitude. Kelly Space and Technology already tested this approach with a F106 Delta Dart towed by a C141 a few years ago.

The Starfighter would have its engine bay removed and replaced with a hybrid rocket. (Have to seal off the intake, of course) Drop and take off at around 40,000'. Only room for one passenger, of course, but a side benefit is ejection capability (only barely)

F-104's weigh less then F14's, are faster then F1's, and have very little wing loading. They have been purchased privately, before.

Bad_astra - You would do well to remember that up until the X-43 flight a couple of weeks ago, X-15 No. 3 (an aircraft designed back in the fifties) had for 37 years held the highest speed ever attained in level powered flight. In other words, aircraft from forty years ago are NO WHERE near as obsolete as computers from forty years ago.

what'd really be best is an F-22, but it'll probably be 40-50 years before those'll be on the open market, not that the government couldn't try it. also, you already have that internal bay, i'm sure something useful could be put in there. they are lighter than an F-14, far faster, more maneuverable, and can take more heating.

oh and while this isn't a bad idea, don't insult people who disagree with you, don't insult the x-prize, and abandon your rocket car idea before you start sounding really stupid for it, because that would both completely defeat the purpose and also attract a totally different audience, in addition to being more dangerous...

So far I haven't seen anything to suggest to me that many X-Prize vehicles will be SAFER than a rocket car, let alone AS safe.

Rocket motors and propulsion systems are much more impressive when they're IN something instead of being static fired on a test stand, and a rocket car (generally speaking) is a hell of a lot cheaper to build than a manned flying rocket while at the same time demonstrating the same propulsion system technology.

There is more to making an RLV then engine testing. And for the puposes of testing engines, static testing is fine. There is no need to engineer a rolling platform to put it on. People aren't that interested in land speed record cars to make it worth their while. People don't tune into ESPN to watch salt-flats racing.

You are so obsessed with an idea you can't see it from the outside. Please don't turn this forum into a place for you to rant on and on about rocket cars. You did the same thing on the Cats Prize Board and made it nearly unreadable.

Let me get this straight, the guy is claiming that for somewhere between 2.8 and 3.8 million he could have a two-seat vehicle basically capable of taking the X-Prize. I guess squeezing a third person somehow is simply impossible. Must be nice to be able to think this stuff up and then turn around and walk away from not only making several million dollars by winning the X-prize (if his numbers pan out) but also ditch a possibly very profitible sub orbital business and he implies that the X-prize teams are stupid with that 'clown' crack.

Sorry but claims like this no matter how plausible, coming in at this late in the game have the stench of something like 'Yeah well I could do it a lot better than these other idiots but I'm too busy'. That kind of attitude puts this yo-yo a lot closer to the Blue Ridge Nebula people than any of the X-prize teams that are actually building flying hardware.

Oh wait, let me guess, because there are a few Tomcats still flying it's impossible to get a hold of one of the hundreds that have already been retired.

Not to say that the whole suborbital Tomcat concept on it's own doesn't sound really cool but even the best ideas can be ruined by the taint of something like this Waldo flake.

Let me get this straight, the guy is claiming that for somewhere between 2.8 and 3.8 million he could have a two-seat vehicle basically capable of taking the X-Prize. I guess squeezing a third person somehow is simply impossible. Must be nice to be able to think this stuff up and then turn around and walk away from not only making several million dollars by winning the X-prize (if his numbers pan out) but also ditch a possibly very profitible sub orbital business and he implies that the X-prize teams are stupid with that 'clown' crack.

Sorry but claims like this no matter how plausible, coming in at this late in the game have the stench of something like 'Yeah well I could do it a lot better than these other idiots but I'm too busy'. That kind of attitude puts this yo-yo a lot closer to the Blue Ridge Nebula people than any of the X-prize teams that are actually building flying hardware.

Oh wait, let me guess, because there are a few Tomcats still flying it's impossible to get a hold of one of the hundreds that have already been retired.

Not to say that the whole suborbital Tomcat concept on it's own doesn't sound really cool but even the best ideas can be ruined by the taint of something like this Waldo flake.

When YOU have the REAL WORLD experience of building and firing a manned liquid propellant rocket vehicle get back to us.

You're also forgetting Waldo's proposal is based on the Navy having spent tens or hundreds of millions to develop the F-14 in the first place.

When YOU have the REAL WORLD experience of building and firing a manned liquid propellant rocket vehicle get back to us.

You're also forgetting Waldo's proposal is based on the Navy having spent tens or hundreds of millions to develop the F-14 in the first place.

Good lord, please tell me that you are kidding. For one I was not criticizing the basic concept, in fact I said it was a pretty cool idea. I was criticizing the apparent lack of business sense and the lousy attitude. You're telling us that this guy not only has all these years of experience backed by all that research done by the Navy and has this attitude towards the X-prize competitors that is flatly insulting, yet he himself doesn't have the ability to actually build this less than 5 million dollar concept in order to win the 10 million dollar prize? I have real trouble believing that there's no way to add a third person to that concept and still keep it under 5 million if the numbers given are true anyway. Are you saying that with all the years and years of experience with those rocket cars this guy can't pull together enough investors to outlay the money? That would certainly surprise me, especially with all those thousands of Tomcat pilots/customers that would be a source of revenue after winning the X-Prize. Which should be an easy thing to pull off if he's correct with his 'clowns' crack.

So really just what are you trying to tell me with your comment, that you need 'real world experience' building and firing manned liquid propellant rocket vehicles to voice an opinion that someone sounds like an ass that doesn't seem to have much financial sense?

On a side note did you really nearly ruin the readability of the Cats Prize board with this spam like behavior over rocket cars? Are you trying to become the 'Alan Ralsky Spam King' of a small forum?

Good lord, please tell me you can read well enough not to need everything spelled out for you.

"You're also forgetting Waldo's proposal is based on the Navy having spent tens or hundreds of millions to develop the F-14 in the first place." How did you misinterpret such a simple, clear and direct statement? How did you take "...to develop the F-14 in the first place" to mean something else besides what the Navy paid Grumman to design, build and develop the F-14?

Waldo doesn't need a business plan because neither he nor anybody else has said he personally intends to pursue it. A reading of www.sonicwind.com makes it quite clear which projects he is pursuing himself.

Concepts: The purpose of the "Concepts" page is to share ideas I have worked out for vehicles and aircraft. Through the years I have studied every land, water and air speed record vehicle designed. I understand their particular problems and offer my solutions. I only give seeds for thought the actual solutions will be created and built by you. I only offer a different way of looking at existing ideas......Waldo"